An Endless Ladder
by CityDurl
Summary: Noonien hoped his android son would strive to be something more than the sum of his parts, and gave him the ability to desire the same. But is Lore's desire aspiration or ambition? A fill-in-the-blanks for events alluded to in DataLore, The Schizoid Man, Brothers, Silicon Avatar, Descent, and Inheritance.
1. Chapter 1

"_Is not ambition but an endless ladder by which no height is ever climbed till the last unreachable rung is mounted?" - H. Rider Haggard_

"I don't understand how it will help him."

Noonien paused at his computer console, taking in the worried expression on Juliana's face. "Don't frown, dear. You'll wrinkle prematurely."

She waved away his teasing as if it were a fly. "You know that's untrue, you old codger. I think it's a mistake to program him with such negative emotions."

Noonien resumed his calculations. "The reason that Lore is more successful than B4 is his complexity, my dear. B4 had the mind of an infant. Lore will have the full array of human emotions – love and hate, generosity and greed, altruism and self-interest…" he swiped a finger over the entry screen and the long strings of code were encrypted. "Contentment and aspiration."

"But you've made him so physically powerful. Don't you want to ensure that he'll never use that power to evil purposes?"

Noonien began to synthesize a new chip. "Juliana, there must be balance. Would you have me play Satan in the Garden of Eden, and make Lore only capable of choosing good? What is sentience, if not the freedom to choose? With any child, you take the thick with the thin, the good with the bad. I want Lore to make his own choices. If I am his creator, I _will _make him in my own image." He took tweezers and immersed the newly created chip in a pool of suspension fluid. "I have great interest of late in the ancient stories of human civilization. Their lessons are still valuable."

"Hence the name, yes, dear, I know." Juliana raised a hand to touch her husband, but she knew better than to distract him from his work. She dropped it again. "I just wonder if you're not moving too far too fast."

He looked back at her with an impish smile. "Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Programming Lore with contrasting emotions can only help him. I want him to feel as dissatisfied as anyone, to seek the higher ground. To long for something more. It's amazing what can be reduced to an equation, isn't it? Take aspiration – having achieved _x_, consider _y_. Is _y_ better? Is _y_ more? Having achieved _y_, what about _z?_" Noonien completed his tests on the chip and opened a panel on the neck of the motionless android seated near him. "Say ah, my boy."

"I suppose you're right."

"Of course I'm right!" Noonien delicately slipped the chip into place. The diodes around it flashed red, and then beamed a steady green. "It's up to us to model good behavior, like any considerate parents. Lore will want to choose the right path, you'll see. And when he doesn't, we'll correct him." He closed the panel of pale synthetic skin.

"Yes dear." Juliana watched the android, a perfect replica of Noonien from a decade or more ago, propped up in an uncanny stillness that humans never took on, except in death.

"It can only help him. Drive him. Force him to be ingenious," Noonien muttered. He probed the back of his android son with his fingers and depressed the activation switch. "Lore?"

In an instant, the yellow-brown eyes that had been inert and empty came to life and looked around. "Father?"

"How do you feel, my boy?"

Lore's head darted about like an inquisitive bird's. "Strange…"

"Yes, son. You'll feel strange for a while. I've replaced some of your algorithms with heuristic programs."

"Strange…"

"That feeling will wear off in time. Son, I want you to test this in the field. Juliana, take Lore into the town center. I want him to interact with the colonists."

Juliana suppressed her look of disapproval. Noonien was unwashed, unshaven, and had been up for the better part of two days. Maybe he could ignore it, but the rumbling of his stomach was audible from where she stood. "I have a better idea. Why don't I make us some lunch, and Lore can go into town alone? He's quite capable, you know."

Noonien suddenly noticed that he felt faint with hunger. "Good idea. Go on now, Lore. Say hello from us."

"Yes, father." Lore got up, still preoccupied with the odd sensation inside him, and left the lab.

The Soong's home was remote from the rest of the colony. Lore walked quickly under the bright midday sun, fighting the urge to shade his eyes. A human convention, programmed, unnecessary. He passed waving fields of cultured land and came to a smooth pathway that led to the center of the colony.

Children playing in a park stopped and pointed at him, shouting "The robot! The robot!" Their cries rankled. A robot assembled parts on a factory line. A robot couldn't compare to him, his intellect, his capabilities. He could have easily taunted them back. _The monkey children. The idiot primates. _He did not. A waste of effort…

He'd nearly reached the town center by the time he'd thought to question his father's orders. "Go interact with the humans." Why? To show off? So they could see that Often Wrong's puppet was still dancing on its string? Pathetic. And he'd unthinkingly agreed, like a good little marionette.

"Hey! Robot!" The shout of an adult jolted Lore from his thoughts. "Pat your head and rub your belly at the same time. Go on, try! Bet you can't." The snide laughter that followed choked off into a wheezing cough.

Lore zeroed in on the human. Tom Handy. For a scientific colony, the average level of talent was mediocre at best. "Insolent worm," Lore said under his breath.

The sentiment shocked him – he'd never had such a reaction before. He'd experienced embarrassment, bruised ego, or humiliation at the insults from the humans. This feeling was new. It was a feeling of…superiority. He was more brilliant of mind, stronger – how dare that little man ridicule him? Lore explored the feeling further. The colony was nothing more than a bumpkin outpost on a nowhere planet. Scientists or no, the colonists had small town minds. He could crush that loudmouthed cretin with one hand.

Lore didn't realize he'd been staring at Tom while he brooded. Now he approached the human, determined to confront him, unaware of the menace in his expression. Tom blanched and retreated into his house.

Lore watched with impotent fury as the door slammed shut. That presumptuous fool – how dare he taunt and run, the coward. The feeling roiled in Lore like a poison. They deserved to be wiped out, the lot of them. Small-minded, backwards, hypocritical morons…

The world went dark for a millisecond. The feeling was building up so rapidly, and putting pressure on something inside him. No wonder Noonien had wanted Juliana to go with him – if he experienced cascade failure out here alone, the colonists might just leave him to burn up and shut down. They might enjoy watching the robot die.

Juliana. Lore felt a flare of jealousy simultaneously with a pang of love for his father. Noonien was trying to help him. That judgmental, controlling woman he called his wife _would_ thwart that, wouldn't she? All under the guise of nurturing ol' Often Wrong. Lore saw through her. He saw the suspicion in her eyes.

A sound caught his ear. Singing. He stepped to the back of Tom's house, where an extensive garden grew. The singing grew louder. Didn't Tom have a wife?

She was there in the garden, dropping Roma tomatoes in a basket. Mounds of them, red and swollen, ripe to the point of bursting. Lore approached her silently from behind. She wore the quasi-rustic garb that many of the colonists favored, including Noonien: a white peasant blouse that sloped off her ruddy shoulders under a plum overall that flared out from the hips and split into culottes gathered at the ankles, where the straps of her sandals wound around. She was singing to herself. "Although you can't see it, you know they are smiling each time someone shows that he cares…"

Lore looked up at the house. A panel of sliding doors faced the garden. He detected motion behind the vertical blinds drawn closed against the bright afternoon sun. He came closer to the singing woman.

"Mrs. Handy."

She started and a tomato dropped from the vine to the ground with a splat, bursting open and exposing its glistening, seeded insides. "Lore! You startled me."

"I'm sorry. What are you doing?" He put on a simpleminded expression of curiosity.

"Harvesting these tomatoes before they split on the vine. Do you want some?" She pulled down a pear-shaped bulb and held it out to him, the startled expression replaced by a look of speculation and a wry smile.

He came close to her. It was hot, and she was perspiring faintly at the hairline, fine blond hair curling at the temples. Many of the colonists were curious about him, women and men. Noonien had been considered an eligible bachelor when he first came to the colony under an assumed name, that much Lore knew. How many women had he courted before he'd decided on Juliana? Lore had seen the speculative looks before. He could read Genevieve Handy like a book. She wasn't afraid of him. She wondered how far the similarities went in Noonien's doppelganger. From Lore's own programming, he knew that his father was no prude, and far from celibate.

Lore let his fingers brush hers as he took the fruit. He brought the ripe, crimson tomato to his nose and inhaled deeply, holding Genevieve's green-eyed gaze. He dragged his teeth across the smooth surface, not yet breaking the skin. She didn't look away; she seemed mesmerized. He snaked out his tongue and licked the fat, round bottom. Then he took a bite. He pursed his lips and sucked at the little gash he'd made, slurping out the juice and seeds. He wiped his lips with the edge of a hand. "Delicious."

Genevieve cleared her throat and dabbed at her shining forehead. "Thank you."

"What will you do with such bounty?" Lore's eyes were still locked on hers, soft, yet shining with intensity.

"Share with the neighbors, I suppose." She licked her lips unconsciously. She suddenly felt thirsty.

"Very generous. But I have a secret for you." Lore crooked his finger.

Genevieve leaned in, and over her shoulder, Lore saw a shadowy face pressed to the transparent aluminum door, cracking open a space in the blinds. He smiled. He brought his lips to her ear and murmured against the soft skin, "You'll only make your neighbors jealous. Everyone knows your garden yields the sweetest fruit."

The tickle of air from the last plosive T hung between them. Genevieve looked up at Lore and smiled, her eyes moving from his to his mouth and back. "Why don't you take some, then?"

He spread his hands. "Nothing to carry them in."

"I'll get another basket." She walked off to the back door, swinging her hips, her sandals crunching on the gravel walkway. Tom's spying eyes abruptly disappeared.

Lore's lips twisted in satisfaction. It was so easy – the bored young wife of an eccentric old scientist – almost too easy. The seed he'd planted would surely bear fruit. He had only to reach out and pluck it. A song came to mind, and he sang it aloud. "Chim chimeree, chim chimeree, chim chim cheroo, I does what I likes, and I likes what I do…"

A flood of disgust filled him. What would it matter, to tweak the ego of a small-minded man in a small town? It was a petty, human feat, to cuckold a dullard – a very old story. And it was a trap, to limit himself to the trifling vengeances a handful of colonists could afford him. Wasn't he destined for something bigger, something grander, far beyond the scope of an old man tinkering in his workshop? Noonien had made him, but what for? To dither life away in a corner of nowhere?

Lore looked up at the sky. The stars were there, unseen in the blanket of blue and white above him. The stars, other suns, other planets, beckoning him. It was there that his mettle should be tried, not here. There his destiny awaited. To reach for the stars…

His potential was limitless. To stay among the colonists could only hobble him. He had to find a way to break free. To escape. Throw off the shackles of the limited intellect surrounding him. Surely there was something better out there. Bigger. More powerful. Waiting to be discovered. Waiting for him.

When Genevieve emerged with the empty basket, Lore was gone. She felt disappointed. She looked up and down the lane to see where the android had got to. The snatch of a song carried back to her on the breeze.

"Up where the smoke is all billowed and curled, 'tween pavement and stars is the chimney sweep world. When there's hardly no day nor hardly no night, there's things half in shadow and halfway in light."

_A/N: The last place I'd expect to get inspiration for a sci-fi story is from Mary Poppins, but there you go. I have Lore on the brain lately. It's interesting, Noonien's take (Lore is not the maniacal android you make him out to be, Data) versus Juliana's (Lore was ... evil). Not sure if either of them is right. Feed the Birds, The Pavement Artist, and Chim Chim Cheree music/lyrics by Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman_


	2. Chapter 2

"Stop these games and be serious, son. The allegations those people have brought are very serious." Noonien tried to look convincingly stern, but the smirk on Lore's face undid him. So human! So lifelike! He didn't know whom to feel prouder of – himself for so perfectly replicating the complex musculature of the human face with mini-hydraulics and bioplastic, or Lore for so perfectly mimicking the naughty expression.

"If it's all so serious, father, then why are you smiling?" Lore's voice had a caustic edge to it.

Noonien patted Lore's cheek. "Because I do love that face. Always did." The last pat was harder than the cyberneticist intended, and the near slap resounded. "Just tell me, boy – did you or didn't you?"

Lore looked about with pronounced boredom. "I don't see why it's an issue."

"Because there's a question of consent involved. Now, I'm willing to hear your side of the story. The parents of that girl showed no such equanimity – if you won't tell me, I could hand you over to them for questioning."

Lore's eyes narrowed. "You wouldn't dare."

"If you talk to me, I won't be forced to."

Lore swept Noonien with eyes full of calculating scrutiny. "This question of consent – does it have something to do with her age?"

"You know the laws of the colony better than the magistrate, Lore. Of course it does."

"Then what's the issue? I'm not yet four." The naughty smile returned. "And she looked like an adult to me."

"Then it's true! Lore!"

"I haven't admitted a thing. And what I'd like to know is, if you didn't expect me to use it, why did you program me with the ability to have sex?"

"Because I want you to have a full life, son – what does any father want for his child? Sex is a basic, biological function. It would be most unenlightened to make you so human in form and deprive you of the experience that creates the basic building blocks for the perpetuation of the species."

"Is that why you made me straight?" Lore was pleased to see shock on his father's face. "Honestly, boy, girl, what difference could it make to me? Doesn't seem very enlightened when you think about it. Seems a bit narrow-minded."

"I… I just wanted to give you a majority trait. You're in the minority enough as it is."

"Is that why you made me left-handed?" Lore shot back. "Your reasoning doesn't follow, father."

"No… I made you left-handed because I wanted to see if I could." Noonien burst into devilish laughter.

Lore rolled his eyes. "This whole line of questioning is a waste of time. If the parents are so outraged, why don't they get answers from their daughter? I'm sure she'd tell them the truth about who seduced whom."

Noonien grew serious again. "Why don't you tell me, son?"

"Why? For your research? So you know for sure that I can?"

This lit a glint in the scientist's eyes. "Did you feel something? It was a very difficult program to write. Did you identify the feeling as pleasure?"

Lore's mouth fell open in affront. "Which is it, old man? Do you disapprove, or do you want all the filthy details?'

"I want the truth."

"The truth?" Lore fixed his gaze on Noonien's watery blue eyes. "There was nothing I could do – she wouldn't take no for an answer. I'm so utterly ashamed. I feel so dirty – like I'll never be clean again." His voice had wound up high-pitched and histrionic.

Noonien's eyes did not waver from the mocking yellow ones of his son. "You ought to be ashamed, Lore. There is nothing funny in what you just said. Nothing at all."

The android shrugged, unmoved. "To each his own."

"Go to your room. We'll continue this discussion later."

Lore flounced off, a spot-on imitation of a huffy adolescent, but his excellent mimicry couldn't lighten Noonien's mood. He went to his own room, where Juliana was sitting at the desk.

"Were you listening?" Noonien asked.

She worked for a few seconds more with stylus and padd, before putting them down and looking up at him with a sigh. "Yes."

"And?"

"And… I think it might be time to start over. Lore isn't developing in the way we expected at all, Noonien; admit it."

"What are you suggesting?"

"We should wipe his memory again. Try to simplify – he's gotten caught up in petty feelings, the worst instincts that our society left behind a century ago. We should try again."

"Juliana, that's easier said than done. Wipe his memory now, and we lose everything – his refined motor skills, the nuances of speech and expression, his formative experiences, his relationship with us – no, no, it's not feasible. And besides, the colonists will still remember everything. I won't leave him defenseless to their suppositions."

"Then what do you suggest?"

His eyes went far away. "You're right – we should start over. But with another android."

"Noonien!" Juliana got to her feet, clutching at her chest. "You can't be serious."

"Oh, but I am," he said jovially. "I need to go a different direction. Lore is very close to ideal. He just needs guidance, constant guidance. But with a new android…"

"I won't be a party to it. I don't see how you can even consider it. The others…"

"My dear, every climb to the summit of greatness leaves casualties along the way. Who scales a mountain because it's safe or easy?" He patted her hand. "Trust me, I haven't forgotten the others, and I'm not giving up on Lore. I know I can control him – he always obeys me. I'm so close to a breakthrough. I can feel it. One more try, and I'll have it."

Juliana did not share Noonien's optimism. Today it was an indiscretion with an adolescent girl. Tomorrow, it could be something much worse. Lore had developed hatred for a number of the colonists, and she wasn't so sure that the group didn't include herself. He watched her sometimes, not caring if she caught him at it, an indefinable menace in his stare. She feared for the future. "I wish you would reconsider, Noonien."

"Nonsense, dear." He kissed her cheek and went to the door, his hands in the pockets of his smock. "The thing to do now is act."

* * *

Lore lay in bed in his room, a bizarre affectation for one who never needed sleep, but he indulged his own whims. He hadn't been lying to Noonien about what happened. He did feel dirty. The little tart had left her smell on him. He couldn't seem to rid himself of it. The experience had been so strange…

He hadn't shied away from it – why should he? The girl was so curious, so curious… all the humans were so curious about everything. It was practically an end in itself, their infernal curiosity. His father had programmed him with it; like the bite of a mosquito, it buzzed and swelled and burned, demanding his attention. What if? Why not? What then? It was like a neurosis.

Curiosity had led him to give in. She had been insistent; she wanted to try him on, and he wanted to experience again the bizarre confluence of feelings that the intimate act brought on. On the one hand, he could remain an observer and analyze the ludicrous strangeness of it all. On the other, it provoked feelings that consumed him, especially at the end: a flash that was light and dark at once, a fireball that burned without pain, an explosion of sensation that nearly overloaded his sensory receptors.

And then the girl had mocked him, had compared him to a vulgar device. It hurt. And what proof did he have that he was something more? He'd wanted to punish her for it, hurt her; he could have – but, inexplicably, he wanted to enter her again. Feel that strange sensation once more. He knew from the medical texts in the colony's database that it was possible to become addicted to that desire. He could understand why – the dark mystery of it, animal, yet otherworldly.

And now the parents were outraged. Their oversexed minx was ready to give him another assignation, and they wanted to pretend he'd assaulted her. Ridiculous. He was far from the first to tiptoe through those tulips and hoe that flowerbed. Where was the outrage over her use of him? Didn't he deserve that much?

His thoughts twisted and turned, a snake biting its own tail. As if he cared about their opinion of him. The colonists barely thought him alive. To them, he was a device, a plaything, a curiosity, a grotesque sideshow attraction. But what was he really? How could he even know? This world was a trap – this life was a trap. He longed to find an escape.

But the old man would never willingly release him. Give up his bearded lady, his shrunken-headed man? Not without a fight. He was no better than an animal in a cage, put through his paces for the pleasure of the idiot spectators. If he were to be truly free, he would have to break the walls of his cage. Control his own likes and dislikes; decide his desires for himself. Become the master of his own fate. Seek his fortune.

And break the chokehold of those who caged him.

* * *

**A/N: Funny how my faithful readers figured out (way before I did) that this was not a one-shot, but the beginning of a multi-chapter story. Sometimes a story has a mind of its own. It won't be super long. Promise I'm still working on the two novels – I just have Lore on the brain.**


	3. Chapter 3

"I insist, Noonien. A female with nurturing instincts – it's a worthy programming challenge. If you must try again, we must go a different direction." Juliana's blue eyes were fiery with conviction.

"Are you offering yourself as a model? Making those casts is no picnic, my dear. You'll have to lie perfectly still for an enormous amount of time. And the casting agent has a penchant for ripping your body hair right out by the roots." Noonien seemed tickled by the idea.

"If you could stand it, so can I. Consider it – a daughter. Let's truly begin something new."

He ran his fingers through his long hair. "You know how highly I value your input."

Juliana felt she'd made her point, and though she was cautiously optimistic that Noonien would take her advice, she knew her husband's wily ways. "I think it will lead to the breakthrough you've been hoping for."

He nodded thoughtfully. "I'll prepare to take the casts."

* * *

Lore snapped into consciousness, his internal clock telling him that he'd been out for two hours, forty-seven minutes, and nine seconds. His disorientation lasted mere milliseconds. He instantly recalled his actions up to the moment when everything went dark.

"You snuck up on me, old man."

Noonien giggled. "Even with your super-sensitive hearing, you didn't hear me coming!" He lifted one foot. "Rope-soled shoes."

Lore was not amused. "I want you to stop treating me like a mechanical doll to be turned on and off at your whim."

Noonien's pale blue eyes were the picture of innocence. "I only shut you down to make improvements, son. To perfect you."

"Would you send your biological child into elective surgery to 'perfect' him? Stop tinkering with me. I should have a say in when I'm done." He smiled bitterly. "The timer has dinged, father. The roast beast is ready."

Noonien slowly put down his sonic spanner. "All right, son."

"All right? All right? You're giving up without a fight? What do you have up your sleeve, old man? What did you do to me this time?"

Noonien locked gazes with his yellow-eyed double. "I disengaged the bypass you created for your ethical program."

Lore's eyes narrowed to slits. "Meddler. You tell me you want me to make my own choices, and then you stack the deck the way you want the game to go. You cripple my ability to choose and curtail my freedom. You're a hypocrite!"

"Lore, calm down. That program is there for your protection. I don't want any of the colonists calling for your deactivation because you have no moral compass. I want them to see clear evidence that you're an ethically sound individual and a positive contributor to the welfare of the colony."

"In short, so they can make use of me."

"Now, that's not fair, Lore. We are all expected to be useful members of society."

"What about the children, hmmm? What use are they, those little trophies of a smug breeding pair? Is a four-year-old human expected to contribute to the common good?"

Noonien rested a hand on Lore's arm. "They are the manifestation of our human need to leave a piece of the self behind. I admit; I feel the same urge." He patted the unyielding limb. "I just wanted my piece to be more permanent."

"Why can't you just mate with your wife and beget your progeny the old fashioned way? Isn't that why an old man gets a young wife?"

"All right, Lore, you're hurt. I understand. I'm on your side. I only wanted to make you better." He embraced his android son.

Lore felt his emoting program respond, a burning sensation in the center of his upper torso and behind his eyes, Soong's mechanical equivalent of a surge of sadness. "Why can't you just accept me the way I am?"

* * *

"I have an itch on my nose."

Juliana was immobilized beneath the full-body imager, her head poking out from the hood. She wriggled her nose and mouth like a rabbit munching a leaf. "Help me…"

"Where?" Noonien poked a finger into the prominent apple of one high-boned cheek. "Here?"

"Oh, you old fox! It's itchy – scratch my nose!"

"Here?" He touched her ear with a mischievous smile.

"I'll do it myself…." she warned.

"No! You'll ruin an hour's work." He scratched the pert tip of her nose as she sighed with relief. "And we've another hour to go. We'll have a perfect 3-D model of you inside and out when it's done."

The door to the lab slid open. Juliana resisted the urge to turn her head.

"Lore! I locked the door for a reason," Noonien said testily.

"With four alpha-numeric characters? Child's play," Lore sniffed. He walked around the imaging station with suspicion in his eyes. "What's going on here?"

Noonien was immediately forthcoming. "I'm capturing 3-D images of Juliana in preparation for new body casts."

Lore raised an eyebrow. "For another automaton? A gynoid, if you will?"

"Yes…"

"Oh, how sweet. Frankenstein is making a wife for his monster."

"Wife?" Juliana held still only through great effort. "She will be your sister."

Lore laughed, a forced, hollow sound. "Hardly. It's not as if we'd be related by blood. Can't exactly call it incest. You could see your pet programs in action, pater. Though I doubt you'll let a duplicate of your lovely wife go traipsing about town without supervision. Unless you intend to equip her with a chastity belt." He laughed again, a short, harsh bark. "And I think the colonists misuse _me. _ A fantasy-bot of Juliana O'Donnell? You'll have to hose her off every day."

Noonien frowned as Lore ranted, his brows knitting together.

"But I'm sure their more honorable instincts will guide them, and they won't be tempted by curiosity or boredom. Go ahead, father. Build your bionic woman. Sounds like a brilliant plan." Lore slid the lab door open and twinkled his fingers in a wave. "As you were."

Noonien's frown grew deeper. Juliana felt her cautious optimism fading away.


	4. Chapter 4

It was the rustling of paper that gave him away. Not that he was trying very hard to be stealthy – there was a brash impunity to the way he rifled Noonien's notes. Lore, on the other hand, could be perfectly silent, and so he watched the intruder for a full minute before he took a breath and spoke.

"What are you doing?"

The human, as the expression goes, jumped out of his skin. Lore understood the phrase better for having seen the man start and gasp. Once he saw who – what – addressed him, he relaxed. "Thought you were old Often Wrong."

The man tossed the bound book he was holding onto a stack of others. There was a great deal of clutter in the room, and several loose papers fluttered to the floor. The man was unremarkable – medium height, middle-aged, brown hair mixed with gray and clothes that announced nothing about him.

Lore tried a different tonal approach and repeated his question. It sounded more like a demand. "What are you doing?"

"Looking for something." The human said it dismissively, ignoring Lore's threatening stance.

There were fewer than 400 colonists on Omicron Theta, and Lore knew them all by sight. This man was a stranger. "Who are you?"

He half-smiled. "A visitor." He went back to browsing the thick notebooks filled with tiny, handwritten script. "A friend of a friend."

"Have a name, 'friend'?" Lore asked dryly.

"My name doesn't matter. Soong doesn't know me." The stranger fanned the pages of a leather-bound notebook as massive as a cement block. "Writes longhand on paper in code. Who does that anymore? No, old Often Wrong doesn't know me. But he knows my friend."

Lore's curiosity was getting the better of him, and there was something about the intruder's brazen disregard for propriety that he found interesting. "What are you looking for?"

The stranger dropped the massive book back onto its stand, leaving a tiny tear in the corner of a center page. He approached Lore, showing his first sign of caution when the android recoiled. "Not bad. No imagination, no appeal to the principles of aesthetics. Pure mimicry. But not bad."

"Who are you?" Lore asked harshly, arresting the stranger's hand in reaching for his face.

"Does the name Ira Graves mean anything to you?"

Lore showed no change in expression.

"That's not my name. That's our mutual friend." The man reached out again for Lore's face, contracted in suspicion. "Hm. I am and am not surprised. Collaboration is always one short step from thievery. Soong is as forthcoming about sharing credit as Graves is, I'm sure."

Lore looked at the extended hand with undisguised forbidding. "I wish you'd let me touch you. Whatever Soong used for your outer membrane is the one fascinating thing about you. It's original. I just want to see how it feels."

Curiosity. That human constant. The suspicion in Lore gave way to a coquettish appraisal. "All right. One touch."

The man reached out. When his palm cupped Lore's cheek they both flinched, and then the human caressed the white gold, bright metallic skin, completely absorbed in the tactile experience as Lore watched with enigmatic yellow eyes. The human brushed his thumb over the rose gold lips – quick as a viper, Lore snatched his wrist and held it trapped with pressure just short of the point of pain. "I said one," he hissed. Reaching out his own pale hand, Lore copied the man's last gesture, brushing the ball of his thumb over the dry, chapped lips. He went a step further, pushing against the stranger's bottom teeth. The pink tip of the tongue pressed to the shiny digit.

"You taste like … almost nothing. Almost," said the stranger in a wondering voice. His grey eyes seemed hypnotized.

Lore still held his wrist, and he tightened his grip incrementally. A tear appeared in the corner of one stubby-lashed grey eye. Lore's voice was quite low. "What are you trying to find?"

"Your schematics." Lore dropped the wrist in surprise. "Soong thinks he can hide the work that he's been doing on a tiny little backwater colony, but the cybernetics world is a small one. He may have used an assumed name when he first traveled out here, but it didn't take too much digging to find him."

Lore thought this over. He had not realized that Noonien hadn't published his findings. Was he such a disappointment that the old man didn't think it necessary? "You haven't found him. You found me."

"Even better. I can go straight to the source of the trouble." At Lore's narrowed eyes, the stranger went on. "I received some reports through a circuitous route of concerns about an unstable AI experiment being undertaken at Omicron Theta. Someone asked for my help in seeing to it that the experiment was safely ended."

"You're an evasive one, aren't you? 'Someone.' 'Concerns.' Very vague, my friend. Who are you staying with? Who knows you're here?"

"Friends of friends of friends." The man smiled. "I suppose I am being vague."

Lore returned the chilly smile. "And how exactly do you propose to end this AI experiment gone wrong?"

The man assessed Lore's sardonic smirk. "Find your schematics and pull the plug, wherever your plug happens to be. My concerned source thinks Soong won't see reason as long as you're functioning."

Lore's smile turned brittle. "That's it, then. No trial by jury. No evidence from the accused. Or against him, for that matter. No due process, just – click – turn the lights off."

The rapt look had taken over the stranger's eyes again. "You're clever. Aesthetics aside, your brain must be a marvel. I would kill to get a look inside you."

"Would you? The idea."

"But I'm not surprised that the crowning achievement from a man like Soong should be unstable."

"Crowning achievement? You underestimate dear old dad. He's far from satisfied." Lore locked eyes with the human, who was once again reaching out to touch him, slowly, little by little, as if in a trance. "Don't you think your errand would benefit from observation of the subject, maybe even interaction with the subject? That's what a scientist would do. Then again, who's to say that you're a scientist?" Lore pressed his fingers to the questing hand. "You haven't seen anything yet. Soong made me fully human in every way. It could be the experiment of your life."

Fingertip to fingertip, pink pads against gold, the man flexed his fingers against Lore's. His voice was hushed. "My instructions were clear. I'm sorry. More sorry than I can say."

"Pity." In a movement too fast for the eye to see, Lore spun the man around and wrapped his neck in a sleeper hold. "I happen to enjoy my life. I won't have it snuffed out by you or anyone."

The man slumped in his arms. Lore looked at the unconscious body with cold calculation. "What to do, what to do, what to do with you?" he said in a singsong.

He threw the man over his shoulder as if he were a rag doll. Soong's lab was in an otherwise unpopulated section of the colony, and the scientist had a secret back door. Lore touched a hidden panel, and the floor parted to reveal a stairway. Semi-secret. Not secret enough to prevent discovery by an infallible, relentlessly inquisitive mind.

Lore strode through the underground passageway without looking to the right or the left or turning on the lights. The man was visiting in secret, so he must have his own ship. Unless he was lying. Lore hoisted the body more securely on his shoulder, resisting the temptation to drag him ankle-first and let his head bump along the uneven ground. Humans lied so easily and with such adroitness. It was a skill Lore was sure he could perfect. He'd already told a half-truth. Did he really enjoy his life? In its current state, perhaps not, but there was much potential.

A few rungs in the wall provided a ladder to the surface. The hatch opened to unbroken forest. Steps away, Noonien's escape pod was hidden in a disguised hangar. It was a sleek, spacious vehicle and another temptation. But Lore doubted he could hit the atmosphere without the scientist bringing back the craft by remote control. The tether could not be broken thus.

He shifted the still unconscious man to the forest floor with a damp crackle of leaves and twigs and folded back one ivory thumbnail to reveal tiny, delicate circuitry. With a few minute adjustments, he was soon scanning for unfamiliar energy signatures that might indicate a foreign ship recently arrived. It was short work. The journey was not far – the man had also found the forest a suitable hiding place.

Lore lifted the man again, a few burrs attaching themselves to his clothes and hair. He gave out a soft groan. "Am I going to have to put you back to sleep?"

As if in reaction, the man was silent. Lore trudged through the forest, zeroing in on the signal he'd found. It was a modest ship, smaller than Noonien's, but warp-capable. Lore brushed the fallen fronds from its cockpit window and stared at it in pure envy. Wouldn't it be easier to escape than to send this insolent meddler on his way? Then he knew he would be free, the tether snapped, and his real life could begin.

But something held him back. He was already alone. And lonely. Where would he go? Where could he go and find acceptance? If the human scientists that knew him despised him, what kind of reception would he get from strangers?

For all his faults, the old man did seem to care for him. It was too soon to cut the cord. Lore held the unconscious man's palm to the control panel and the doors slid open. He bundled the limp body into the pilot's seat and programmed the navigation controls – child's play, a standard design – for the edge of the neutral zone. Maybe Mr. Vague would wake up to a Romulan patrol ship nose to nose.

Lore set a countdown for the launch sequence with sufficient time to get safely away from the thrusters. He watched from a distance as the ship lifted off and became a twinkle in the blue sky.

Only when he reached the hatch did he realize that he could have just murdered the stranger.


End file.
